Lost in Eternity
by Arlath's Star
Summary: Jack's back, and there's someone he's been meaning to visit for a long long time.
1. Maternal Instinct

**It was in my head and I knew I had to get rid of it before I was left going over and over it at three o'clock in the morning. I don't know where it came from. But it needed to be written. So I did. **

A man stood opposite the house, watching it. He looks nonchalant, his hands dug deep into the pockets of the dark blue military coat he wears, gazing thoughtfully at the door.

But Captain Jack Harkness is anything but nonchalant. Although nothing about his stance says it, he is, for once, uncertain. Possibly more uncertain that he has ever been in all his lives, and he's had quite a few.

He's surprised she hadn't moved house; hadn't wanted to escape the memories. Maybe she's wiser than him, for all his years, and knows that there are some things you cannot escape. Even now the memories are rising again, unbidden, but Jack knows that before he can give into them there is something he must do. Something he has been meaning to do for a long long time.

He knocked on the door and waited. There was no surprise on her face as she opened it. Perhaps she had always known, deep down, that he would come back. Back to the scene of the crime. She let him in, wordlessly.

They stand in the kitchen, both still silent. All Jack's carefully prepared words have slipped away. Instead he looks at the grey hairs now streaking her head, wondering if they are from age or worry. How long has he been gone? He knows she is looking for exactly the same thing, scrutinising him for any sign of change just as she does every time they meet, looking for something which will never be there.

The sound that breaks their silence is a child's laugh.

How long _has _he been gone?

He moved tentatively across to the window, looking back at her for permission. She didn't do anything, so he looked out, into the garden. He could feel her eyes on his back. Emotionless, expressionless.

There's a girl in the garden. She can't be more than three or four years old. A smile comes to Jack's lips in the first time in a long while as he watches her stumble round the garden on chubby legs, arms stretched out to grab at empty air, black curls flying behind her. But it's a painful smile too, watching all that innocence. The girl in the garden reminds him of what he's done, and the woman behind him knows.

"She's got your hair." He says, more to drive away the memories assailing him than anything else.

"She's not my child."

"You adopted?"

"She needed a mother. I needed a child."

Jack bowed his head, remembering the last time he had stood in this kitchen. Alice looking at him worriedly, wanting more than empty platitudes, desperate to know what was really going on so she could protect her son; Stephen, as innocent as that girl in the garden, wanting his Uncle Jack to take him out… Alice was right. He'd only ever come to see them when he wanted something. And now he wanted forgiveness. And he could tell from his daughter's gaze that that was the one thing she would never, ever give him, even after all these years.

But he hasn't forgotten, so why would she? He still blames himself just as much for… for everything. That's what the other thought is trying to tell him, whispering in his ear: _last time you stood here Ianto was still alive._

_I'll lay that ghost to rest later._ Jack tells himself. _Me and Gwen, we'll go together. And Stephen's grave too, if Alice will let me. _

The child runs into the kitchen, but stops short at the sight of Jack. Alice moves over, wrapping her arms around the girl. Jack isn't sure who she's comforting.

"This is my dad, Bronwen." It sounds as though she's saying it more for Jack's benefit than for the child's. He would be grateful that she can still find it in her to call him that, if it hadn't sounded so much like an accusation.

"I see you've taught her to be scared of me. Probably a good plan." Jack tried to dredge up a laugh.

"She doesn't like people."

Jack looks again at the small black head buried in Alice's arms and thinks he knows why. He can just catch a glimpse of burn marks down one side of her face. Not so innocent after all. Perhaps she's fallen through the Rift. He smiles to himself. That would be just like Gwen - an adopt-an-alien scheme.

Alice is still looking at him. Jack sighs softly to himself. They don't need him here. All he brings is pain. "It's time I went. Before I…" He gestures helplessly at the girl.

"Before you ruin her life too?" Alice waits long enough for him to nod shortly. "You already have done."

"How? I haven't even met her."

"You have done, I think. But she hasn't met you."

Jack tries to make sense of this, but failing he decides to change he topic.

"How come you talk about her as if she wasn't there?" She'd always shooed Stephen out of sight as soon as any 'adult' conversations came along, he remembered. And it was that innocence that condemned him to die. Maybe that's why.

"She can't hear me. She's deaf."

Jack looks at the tangled hair again, avoiding his daughter's eyes. Burnt and deaf… maybe the poor kid had been a victim of the bombs, back when… Yeah. Back then. But he's sure that he's been away longer than that.

The girl peeks up at him, wide dark eyes brimming with curiosity as well as fear. The look and the laugh and the name link together in his mind.

"_I thought I'd go for something traditional if it's a girl – alright, alright _we'd _go, though it was your idea to call it bloody Edward, of all things… anyway, I thought maybe Bronwen or Cary or something nice. But I don't want anything too old. What do you think, Jack?" _

Alice's look tells him all he needs to know.

He sinks onto a chair. "When?" He can't take his eyes off the girl now.

"Nearly a year ago. While you were gone."

"Both of them?"

Alice nods.

"But how?"

"A mother will do anything to save her children. You should know that."

Jack takes his eyes off his feet and looks up at her. "Are you going to tell me the rest?" His voice is hoarse and he's got that feeling again in his chest: the one that's worse than being killed.

Alice shakes her head, leaving Jack to guess.

_I wrecked her life. As soon as she walked in with those pizza boxes she was as good as dead. The first time I ever let her catch sight of me. Her and Rhys and their kid too. I signed their death warrants, just like I signed Ianto's and Stephen's and Tosh's and Owen's and Suzie's and Alex's… Because that's all I ever bring anyone. Hurt and pain and worry and finally death. And what good has it ever done in the long run? _

"Where are you going?"

Jack looks back at the pair of them, still huddled together. Just once. "Somewhere where there's no-one else I can possibly hurt."

But he won't stay there long, he knows. It'll only be so long before he's back, looking for comfort, looking for new memories to drive away the old, and the whole process will just be back where it started.

He's going to spend the rest of eternity watching everyone he's ever loved die. Over and over again.


	2. Letters to Nowhere

**I was wrong. There was more. Because little children don't stay little children – they grow up. And my one-shots rarely remain as one-shots.**

**Thank you to all my reviewers: NikkieSheepie, Ravenja70, Marian Locksley, L.A.H.H., EternaldeviL, gernumblies, FanGirl moment xD and gaia-x-goddess. **

**WARNING: This story is like stepping stones in the mist. I don't know where it's going. I don't know where it's going to end. I'm following a little black-haired girl skipping down a woodland path, and if I lose sight of her, or the trail peters out, then so will the story. **

Letters to Nowhere

Jack came back. He always came back.

He wandered back to Torchwood, like driftwood on the morning tide. He thought they might need him. They didn't - at least not anymore than Torchwood ever needed an extra hand - but they welcomed him all the same. They knew who he was – they'd read the reports. And a man who couldn't die was quite helpful to have on your side.

In less than six months, he was back in charge.

And because he's Jack, and he can't stay away, he loves them, the same way he always learns to love his team. To love them and then to lose them. The same way it's always been.

But this time it's different. He's decided to remember. He feels it's the least he can do; to remember all those who died by his side. So the new Hub, as they still call it, incorporates the old in more than just a name. A whole wall of names and photographs: all of Jack's old team, and the team before that, the death toll from Canary Wharf – everyone who has ever given their lives in Torchwood's service.

But he cares for those left behind too. His Welsh children, as he likes to call them. David and Mica and little Bronwen. Not much, but he keeps an eye out for them. Just as he promised.

He never fully unravelled the secrets of Bronwen's past. The archives held practically nothing on the issue, only the death certificates and the reports from afterwards. No one seemed to know what had happened, but Jack could tell that there was more too it than just a simple Torchwood death. Gwen had been keeping secrets from her team.

He thought he understood what Alice had meant. Gwen was strong, and not easily manipulated, but she, unlike him, would always put her family first. And if you held her child… well, you had Gwen in the palm of your hand. And there were plenty of incongruities in the reports of her final few weeks in charge – things which Jack was quick to pick up on after so many years running Torchwood himself. Missing documents, missing artefacts… and the Rift readings made Jack feel decidedly uneasy. Something was very very wrong. But unless Bronwen knew and wasn't telling, the secret was staying buried for ever.

He didn't visit Alice again. She had asked him not to come back. She'd finally managed to find herself a new family, and he could well understand why she didn't want him around. But he still saw Bronwen – a little black head haunting the small churchyard that housed her parents' empty graves.

She must have been about seven then, a scrawny little thing who had lost the chubbiness she had had as a younger child. She still gave the impression she had the first time he had seen her in the garden – a little darting bird, silent and wary.

Her little bunches of hand-picked garden flowers, tied together with scraps of string or hair, put Jack's huge spilling bouquets of roses to shame.

Sometimes there were grubby notes tucked in as well. It was a long time before Jack dared to read one.

_dear mummy and daddy_

_At scool i learn sign talk. I like it. Miss Stanley says i am good. Alice lerns it two but i am better. _

_we made a cake. i left you a bit. it has chocolate in it._

_lots of love_

_Bronwen_

Jack smiled down at the laborious scrawl – trust a child of Gwen and Rhys' to be able to spell 'chocolate' before she could spell 'school'.

He reads them every time after that: _dear mummy and daddy… we had a play at school. i was a anjel… Alice and me went to see granny… the docter said my ears are not any gooder… dylan kikked me… we made buns…_

One day he puts pen to paper and writes her one back. He feels guilty, but he also knows that it's what Gwen would have wanted. She would have been happy that her child was still receiving her love.

It wasn't long before he started adding in stories and photos, both of Rhys and Gwen, and, later, of the others. But although he briefly mentioned a certain Captain Jack Harkness, no photos of him ever appeared.

_dear Mummy and Daddy_

_Miss Stanley told me about gardiun angels. i said you sent me is tall with a blue cote. when I was little he visited me and Alice. is he from you? _

_lots and lots of love from Bronwen_

Jack, biting his lip, said that he had been left to look after her. In a way it was true.

_dear Mummy and Daddy_

_is heven nice? Mrs Stanley says it is very nice with lots of angels and gold and all the best food even really big chocolate cakes. Alice says i must not make really big chocolate cakes becaus they are bad. Alice is meen. i said you would yet me make really big chocolate cakes and she said no. but you would say yes becaus you are nice. _

_Bronwen xxx _

Jack disagreed with that one, and told her she should do what Alice said and eat lots of fruit and vegetables. He even related a story Gwen had told him, about how when _she _was little she'd eaten all her birthday cake before her parents woke up and had been sick all through her party. The questions on heaven he passed over. But there was only one letter he could never bear to answer:

_dear Mummy and Daddy_

_Alice says you died because you love me. that was mean. Dylan says his parents love him and his mummy and daddy are not in heaven. so why are you in heaven?I think you should come back and we should live with Alice and make nice cakes and see aliens because it is not fair that you are in heaven and you did not take me to. _

_Love and kissses _

_Bronwen xxx _


End file.
